Kristol Blah Persuasion

by Ripley

Just to pile on with Thers and 99% of Leftblogistan, let's take a closer look at what Bill crapped out for today's column.  See if you notice the disconnect that I noticed:

It’s time for John McCain to fire his campaign…

What McCain needs to do is junk the whole thing and start over. Shut down the rapid responses, end the frantic e-mails, bench the spinning surrogates, stop putting up new TV and Internet ads every minute. In fact, pull all the ads — they’re doing no good anyway. Use that money for televised town halls and half-hour addresses in prime time.

And let McCain go back to what he’s been good at in the past — running as a cheerful, open and accessible candidate. Palin should follow suit. The two of them are attractive and competent politicians. They’re happy warriors and good campaigners. Set them free.

Did you notice it?  "John McCain is a competent politician and good campaigner, so he should his fire his campaign staff, junk his campaign, and start over."  Hell yeah, brother!  There's a perfect 22 day window of opportunity here for McCain to take advantage of, if he'd just start from scratch.  Brilliant! 

Now, if he were really smart, he'd invite the 2008 Republican Presidential candidates to a special Town Hall meeting, so he could win the Primary again in one night.  That would show America he's still the right choice, energize the Republican electorate and re-legitimize his campaign.  Then, with this new found momentum, he could opt out of Public Financing, choose a different running mate and invite a new (and more loyal) group of reporters to ride the Take Back! Express through the Heartland with him, straight to the White House.

Of course, I'm an elitist Midwestern liberal jokester, and my words are most likely tinged with vitriol or hate-filled ranting or some such, so here's a slightly more sober response from Betty Cracker, at RumpRoast.com:

Kristol advises press conferences for both McCain and Palin, which is clearly absurd. Palin can’t handle Katie Couric. She’s gonna do press conferences? Not bloodly likely.

Well, that's true, but it's not nearly as fun as the hypothetical headline:

McCain Suspends Campaign - Rushes to Campaign HQ to Fix Campaign Crisis

now, is it?   I can't help but wonder if McCain might change his campaign slogan from "Country First" to "Fuck it!  I'll do it live!"  At this point, he really doesn't have anything to lose.

Ah, a boy can dream... right, Bill?

Rip -

Comments

[iamcoyote]

I think he should hire a Reagan impersonator to endorse McCain on the tv. He'd prolly fool a lotta them low-info voters who don't know the guy's dead yet!

Just tryin' to help.

[Nora]

How any person watching either Sarah Palin or John McCain over the last month and a half could refer to either of them as "good campaigners" is beyond me.

Though I suppose that if someone thinks they're both attractive (brain bleach!) and competent politicians, that person's judgment is clearly not to be trusted in anything.

[theperilouspea]

It is becoming pretty obvious the mistake is that I , Mr Peabody , a genius , set the way back machine on McSorry and "my friends" . Let me get to work here .
Oh ! this is my boy Sherman , Sherman get me another beer , thank you .
I only need to adjust this ...

[PattyP]

This gets my vote for the Most Awesomest Blog Post Title Evar award.

["Johnny Quest" McCain, Naval Aviatrix]

I'm thinkin' 'bout it...

[Ripley]

My first thought was: "Oh, Bill Kristol, will you ever stop blowing my mind?"

But that's not really enough to constitute a post, so...

[zhak]

Can you imagine the uproar if there were a Democratic version (shudder!) of Palin running for VP? Someone who is running for the job of being one heartbeat away from the presidency -- and who can't face the pressures of a press conference and who wilted under the tender mercies of that liberal viper Katie Couric.

You gotta admit, it would be pretty funny to consider the folks on the other side in full inchoate blather.

[paperpusher]

i'm waiting for McCain to pull out the Bob Dole chestnut, "I'm going to campaign all 48 hours" of the last 2 days before the election.